Moreover, when it became necessary to meet or head off some critical move on the part of their opponents, Lincoln brought to the fore, just as he did in the courts, that crowning gift of worldly shrewdness which not infrequently goes with simplicity of nature and downright honesty. He did not mislead himself any more than he did his associates, for he saw things as they actually were. He could put himself in the other man’s place, and that is why he could make so close a calculation as to what the other man, under given circumstances, would presumably do. “The other man,” during one campaign, at least, appears to have been wanting in such foresight. And when on that occasion the projects of the Democrats miscarried, because they had failed to anticipate how Lincoln’s side might act, the occurrence called forth one of his little Menard County stories.
“This situation reminds me,” said he, “of three or four fellows out near Athens, who went coon hunting one day. After being out some time the dogs treed a coon, which was soon discovered in the extreme top of a very tall oak tree. They had only one gun, a rifle; and after some discussion as to who was the best shot, one was decided on. He took the rifle and got into a good position. With the coon in plain view, lying close on a projecting limb, and at times moving slowly along, the man fired. But the coon was still on the limb, and a small bunch of leaves from just in front of the coon fluttered down. The surprise and indignation of the other fellows was boundless. All sorts of epithets were heaped on ‘the best shot,’ and an explanation was demanded for his failure to bring down the coon. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you see, boys, by gum, I sighted just a leetle ahead, and ’lowed for the durned thing crawling.’ ”[v-39]
When Lincoln, in the course of a political contest, allowed for something to happen, it usually did not fall very far short of taking place. A fatalist as to the great impelling current whereby a nation is carried toward its destiny, he believed that social and civic causes, however they may be impeded or diverted for a time in their operations, must at last inevitably lead to corresponding effects. His fatalism, however, was of the robust type. It recognized how important a part men play in creating these forces, as well as in bringing about the results. Miracles formed no part of his political creed, and he waited for none to do his work. So we find him repeatedly in the thick of the conflict, straining every nerve to gain a party victory. Such of his election-time letters as have been preserved furnish illuminating evidence of how industrious he could be. Appealing to this man, arguing with that, advising one inquiring supporter in the rural districts, praising another, warning a colleague of some aggressive step contemplated by their opponents here, heartening a hard-pressed brother there, figuring, explaining, forecasting, Lincoln pulled apparently every straight wire which a vigorous use of the mails brought within his reach.
He appreciated the appeal direct at its full value. And to this, Gibson W. Harris, one of the young men who sometimes assisted him, thus bore witness in later years: “The duty fell to me of writing letters, at his dictation, to influential men in the different counties, down to even obscure precincts. Finding the task not only burdensome, but slow, I suggested the use of a printed circular letter, but the proposal was vetoed offhand. A printed letter, he said, would not have nearly the same effect. A written one had the stamp of personality, was more flattering to the recipient, and would tell altogether more in assuring his good will, if not his support. So for several days the clerk was kept busy in writing more letters. Young and inexperienced as I was, I could not help noticing how shrewdly they were put together, and no two exactly alike. He approached each correspondent in a different way, and I soon reached the conclusion that the necessity he felt for doing this was his weightiest reason, after all, for discarding type.”[v-40]
Lincoln did not lose sight, however, of the wider opportunities for influencing voters presented by the printing-press. A tireless student of newspapers himself, reading them in fact, during this period, almost to the exclusion of all other general publications, Lincoln became so familiar with the journals issued throughout the State that their several party affiliations were, whenever he had occasion to recall them, at his tongue’s end. Many an article from his pen, purporting to be an expression of editorial opinion, appeared from time to time in various Illinois sheets. Whether the respective editors, when they adopted these contributions as their own, wholly eliminated the element of deception that enters into such transactions, is perhaps a moot question. One editor, at least, by a simple course avoided any misunderstanding on the subject. This was Jacob Harding who published a country newspaper in the southern part of the State. To him Lincoln once wrote: “Friend Harding: I have been reading your paper for three or four years, and have paid you nothing for it.” Enclosing ten dollars the writer adds: “Put it into your pocket, say nothing further about it.”
The journalist did as he was bid. But soon thereafter, when the generous subscriber sent him a political article with the request for its publication in the editorial columns of his “valued paper,” Harding promptly declined, “because,” he explained, “I long ago made it a rule to publish nothing as editorial matter not written by myself.”
The joke was on Lincoln. Laughing heartily over the letter, he read it aloud to his law-partner, and said: “That editor has a rather lofty but proper conception of true journalism.”[v-41]
This experience was exceptional, however. For in the main, Lincoln’s newspaper contributions, like his personal missives, reached their intended goals, as indeed did most of his projects over the still wider ranges of party management. A practical politician, he employed practical methods. That much-decried scheme of coördinated effort, which for lack of a better term is commonly called “the machine,” owed its development among the Whigs in Illinois more perhaps to him than to any other leader. As early as 1840, upon the eve of the Harrison campaign, he put forth a plan for thoroughly organizing the party within the State. Four other men, it is true, were associated with him on the Central Committee that had this matter in hand, but the enterprise was largely his work. He wrote the circular letter which explained the system they had adopted, and which announced explicitly what would be required thereafter of each party worker. From the several county committees that were arbitrarily appointed by the terms of the circular, down through district committees and sub-committees,—even to the individual voters,—every Whig was assigned to his part in the undertaking.[v-42] A more complete programme for the control of political operations is not easily conceived. Nor do we often meet with a document of this class so frankly expressed in the imperative mood. Its language is that of a master to his men. The crack of the party whip seemingly still rings, even at this late day, through the whole performance; and the hand which grasped the whip did so with a vigor not unlike that customarily displayed, in more recent decades, by the leader to whom political idiom has given the title of “Boss.”
But the parallel goes no further. Lincoln was not a boss. And nothing else in his leadership even suggests the mercenary autocrats whose intrigues have, from time to time, brought reproach upon the whole field of politics,—yes, upon republican institutions themselves. His organization was, in fact, a very different affair from the corrupt local machine of a later period. For even political machines have no vices of their own. They are what the men who run them make them. The modern ring with its spoilsmen, grafters, heelers, blackmailers, thugs, and what-not,—all held together by the cohesive power of public pelf and patronage,—could not have existed for a moment where Lincoln was in control. Nor can we conceive of him packing primaries, manipulating pudding ballots, falsifying election returns, or taking part in any of those numerous other criminal acts whereby the wishes of honest voters have, on notorious occasions, been systematically frustrated.[v-43] “He could not cheat people out of their votes any more than out of their money,” writes Horace White, who enjoyed the exceptional opportunities for close observation already spoken of. “Mr. Lincoln never gave his assent, so far as my knowledge goes, to any plan or project for getting votes that would not have borne the full light of day.”[v-44] He never, it is safe to add, so far as anybody’s knowledge goes, allowed his passion for a triumph at the polls to blur an uncommonly clear vision of what was right and what was wrong. Virtue, they say, wears the garb of no party. Yet a Lincoln could evidently be loyal to his organization,—loyal, if you will, to the machine itself,—without losing sight of what he owed, in the last event, to his own ideals and to the national well-being.